


A Piece of Broken Glass

by Siyah_Kedi



Series: Real World [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:40:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siyah_Kedi/pseuds/Siyah_Kedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Real World Waiting" Sequel!  </p>
<p>Felicci bought his way free, and he's come back to make up for lost time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Piece of Broken Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty graphic torture. I’ve never written out torture before, so it might not end up as bad as it is in my head, but definite non-con, and I’ll probably think of a few more things when I’ve actually written it out.

_I cracked a piece of broken glass  
Coughing up feeling just for you  
To find something real to hold on to  
But there is a hole inside my heart  
Where waves of my love come tumbling out._

_**Garbage - Nobody Loves You** _

-o0o-

The phone was torn away from his hand, and a gruff, half-familiar voice was at his ear. 

"Hello, Graham. Or is that even your real name?" 

The funniest thing about this was - that _was_ his real name. Graham Arthur Cole, that was the name on his real, official birth certificate, the name his long-forgotten mother had chosen for him when he was born. A disconcerting sense of panic and flashbacks to bruised wrists that didn't heal fully for three weeks, and a voice he'd ruined by screaming kept him from laughing at the irony, however. 

It was enough to keep him from doing much of anything, actually, and he stood totally frozen while Gregorio Felicci smashed his phone under one foot, cutting off Eames' tinny voice shouting at him from the other side of the country. 

"What, no fond hello? I have such lovely memories of you. They kept me sane in that place you put me, you know. Thinking of how much I wanted you, how much you wanted me. We could have been great."

Felicci's voice was gravelly, rougher than Arthur remembered. It was impossibly soft, and with a different person, in different circumstances, it might be sexy. "You," Arthur said, and lost his voice for a second. "You were supposed to be away forever. They had enough evidence to convict you. I watched it," he added, babbling, _god, he was so afraid_ and it was killing him little by little. "I watched your trial. Three consecutive life sentences. Two hundred and seventy years for rape, abduction and murder.”

“Amazing what money can buy, isn’t it Graham?” 

And Arthur knew he should be moving, should be doing something - _anything_ \- but he couldn’t get his muscles to respond, and then Felicci was wrapping one arm around his torso, pinning his arms to his side, and the other hand was covering his mouth and as Arthur breathed in the chemicals he realised that he was well and truly fucked. 

-o0o-

When he came to, he was tied over something soft, his back arched and his limbs completely immobile. He wriggled a little bit, experimentally, and only succeeded in pushing his hair into his eyes. It was loose, and soft, which was alarming enough - _had Felicci bathed him?_ \- but the panic really set in when he realised his wrists were tied to his knees and his elbows were secured to his ankles. It was supremely uncomfortable, but it also left him wide open for whatever Felicci had in mind. 

As if summoned by Arthur’s thoughts, Felicci appeared, nude and running his hands down his thighs like he was preparing a show. The thing that arrested Arthur’s attention, however, was the lack of anything between his legs. Felicci noticed him looking almost immediately, and smiled almost shyly. There was something manic about it, however, and it set Arthur’s teeth on edge. 

“Apparently, not even other rapists and murderers don’t take kindly to it when there are children involved,” Felicci announced, as calmly as if he were delivering a weather report. “And the guards are inclined to look the other way for a good cause. They cut everything off with a plastic spoon, and then tore it apart. There wasn’t even enough left for the doctors to reattach anything. I have to piss sitting down like a girl. Are you proud of it? It’s your fault.” 

It was hideous, all scar tissue, and Arthur averted his eyes. Part of him, disturbingly, wanted to apologise. Instead, he said nothing and waited for Felicci to reveal his purpose. _I need to stay calm,_ Arthur told himself. Eames had heard Felicci over the phone, would have known something was wrong by the way the phone was hung up on him in the first place. Cobb knew Felicci was free, and one or both of them were probably on their way to New York right this second, coming to rescue him. He just had to hold out for them to come bursting through the door. 

Felicci picked something up off a table. “I learned to appreciate these when I was growing up,” he said, almost conversationally. Only the madness flickering in his eyes gave away how unhinged he’d become from the smooth predator Arthur had set up years before. “On a farm, sometimes this is the easiest way. Would you like to play pretend again, Graham?” 

He was holding some sort of metal stick. Arthur couldn’t quite make it out at the angle he was bent, but Felicci brought it closer, touched him with it almost gently, but his side exploded in fire. 

“What the _fuck?_ ” 

Felicci touched his other side. It burned, sharp and hot, lingering even after the initial burst. Nowhere was safe; his shoulders, his thighs, his back. It felt like he was on fire, and belatedly he realised he’d started whimpering every time it came near. He still couldn’t put a name to it, couldn’t get his thoughts to focus past the pain. 

“Isn’t this fun? You twitch so nicely.”

“You sick son of a bi-” Arthur started, but then Felicci was prying his mouth open, the metal rod forgotten for a moment. Something hard and somewhat yielding was pushed into his mouth, down his throat, and Felicci tied it around his head, keeping it in place. Arthur gagged but held back on it – he didn’t know just yet what it was, but it reached far enough into his throat that if he vomited he might choke on it. He felt it with his tongue, realised belatedly that it was some sort of sex toy. The man had shoved a dildo down his throat to gag him. Arthur’s head spun and he swallowed reflexively around it, trying to remember how to breathe. His legs and back were going numb from the contorted position he’d been forced into. Felicci moved around behind him, and Arthur hated how nervous he felt at not knowing where the man was. When he felt cold fingers groping at his ass, a tide of icy fear washed over him. It wouldn’t be rape, the man had been unmanned in jail. He clung to that thought until he felt something thick and heavy nudging at him, pushing inside, and he screamed around the makeshift gag. He couldn’t form words but his head was shaking back and forth, begging and pleading as best he could - _not this don’t do it please don’t do it_ \- and then he felt the sharp sting of a needle sliding under his skin. 

Familiar yet terrifying. Something whirred and creaked behind him, and then the thing started moving, pushing deeper into him. Felicci came around and sat down on a reclining chair Arthur hadn’t noticed before, watching him. He poured himself a glass of wine, just as if they were two friends having a quiet evening, and then the slow, hot burn of arousal started deep in his stomach.

_Oh,_ his body said. _We’ve been here before._ Memories crashed over him of the first time he’d been with this man, the tiny sip of a drink that had him incoherent with desire - _wonder what would have happened if I’d drank the whole thing?_ \- he thought he might find out, now, if the fire burning just beneath his skin was any indication. He felt too tight, unpleasant pain lingering from the metal rod and suddenly he realised it had been a cattle prod, that the man had pushed at him with electricity meant for making livestock move, no wonder it hurt like that – and then the thing in his ass was fully seated, and he felt filled up, completed. The drug was making everything fuzzy around the edges, and he threw his head back, tried to arch away from the intrusion but his back was bent as far as it would go. The toy in his ass slid backwards, slick with something - _lube, maybe, or possibly blood_ \- he just felt stretched, couldn’t make out whether or not it even hurt. 

Then it started pulsing and throbbing inside him, still pushing in and out in a mockery of sex, and stars burst behind his eyes, covering everything he could see in a film of white until he couldn’t see any more. He shuddered through a climax he didn’t even feel building, let his head loll backwards until the toy in his throat gagged him and he couldn’t breathe. When his vision cleared momentarily, he saw Felicci in the chair still, legs crossed elegantly, a mad smile stretching his lips as he eagerly drank in the sight. The toy in his ass buzzed louder, shoved harder. Arthur shook and burned. His last coherent thought was _Eames will come for me soon. He’ll be here._

-o0o-

Days passed, or so Arthur thought. Sometimes he was unconscious, sometimes he slept, but the light moved through the window in a regular fashion, and sometimes it was dark outside. Every time he woke, he found himself in some new position, now strapped down to a bed with his arms and legs flung wide, now hanging from the ceiling by his ankles. 

His ribs and wrists felt broken, and there was a constant searing pain in his ass from being repeatedly penetrated by whatever took Felicci’s mad fancy. Sometimes it was food – he might never be able to eat cucumbers again, especially not when they’d been carved like that – and once it was the leg of a broken table with curves and bumps and an ever-widening girth. He was sure something had torn inside him that time, but he never saw any blood, and the pain was the same as always. Sometimes Felicci put a cock-ring around the base of his dick and kept him from getting off for hours or a day at a time, teasing him so hard that when he finally took it off and let Arthur finish he blacked out. Then he’d wake up in some other position, something new going on around him. 

“We might have had this years ago,” Felicci crooned once, long after Arthur had lost track of the days. “You’re not so pretty now, with your huge muscles and your maturity. Still fun, and you still owe me this, but think of how wonderful it might have been if I’d been your first. How old are you now, Graham? Twenty two? Twenty three?” 

There was nothing in his mouth today, and Arthur spat at Felicci’s feet. “Twenty seven,” he gasped out, craning his neck to take in the expression on Felicci’s face. It was worth the extra effort; Felicci was stunned into an open-mouthed silence. 

“That would make you… twenty four when we met,” he said, sounding distant. “But your identification, the marks – you didn’t drink at the bar, you looked like you weren’t even of an age to be there.” 

Arthur rasped, ribs spasming. In the back of his mind, he thought, _laughing._ He felt like he was going insane. “I lied,” he breathed, and Felicci’s face purpled. An ugly expression twisted his features, and suddenly Arthur couldn’t laugh any more, could barely breathe. _He’s going to kill me,_ he thought, with a curious dispassion. More immediately, he thought, _Eames didn’t come. He left me here._

_Alone._

The thought tasted like betrayal in the back of his throat.

-o0o-

The voice was three years older, deeper and harsher, but it couldn’t have been anyone else. Cobb’s warning had come barely ten minutes too late; ten minutes sooner, and Arthur could have been gone and away. Eames swore as the phone disconnected in a deafening crackle of static, calling Cobb back from memory, not even wasting the time to search through his contacts list. 

“Cobb here.” 

“Your timing sucks, you asshole!” It wasn’t what he meant to say, but he was also multitasking, trying to book a flight to New York while simultaneously looking up Arthur’s last known hotel room and information. 

“Eames? The fuck?”

In the background, he could hear little Phillipa clucking. “Daddy, your language, you owe the jar a quarter!” 

“Sorry, Phil. Eames. What the f- what are you talking about? What happened?”

“You couldn’t have called like… fifteen minutes sooner?” Jesus Christ, Arthur was at the mercy of that sick fuck, could be anywhere by now, could be undergoing anything. He couldn’t stop the flashbacks to the first night they’d encountered Felicci, Arthur swaying and wide-eyed, pupils blown and refusing to go under with them because of whatever Felicci had dosed him with. Arthur fucking himself on three fingers in the back of the car, jerking himself off while he begged so prettily for Eames to fuck him. It didn’t matter, in that split second of thought, that Eames had been inside Arthur’s exquisitely tailored trousers many times since then, the only thing he could think about was what might be happening based on prior experience. “He caught up while I was telling Arthur to get away. I just got off the phone with you, was telling him to get the hell away and then I heard his voice, Felicci’s, over the phone just before the line went dead.” He was babbling and aware of it, but he couldn’t make himself stop. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Cobb said, but this time there was no admonition by Phillipa. “I’ll get the babysitter over here, she’s used to short notice, and then I’ll meet you at the airport. Don’t leave without me, this guy’s done jail time and there’s no telling what he’s going to get up to.”

Eames nodded, not even thinking that Cobb couldn’t see him, then agreed verbally. “Fast as you can,” he said, and booked two tickets on the next flight out to New York. It was only an hour to wait, and he hoped Cobb would get there in time. Then he was speeding towards the airport, turning the radio up until he couldn’t hear himself think. 

0

By the time they were at the airport, and beginning to board the plane, the pilot came over the intercom and announced that they were having a few technical issues and takeoff would be delayed a few minutes. They waited almost thirty, Eames’ knee jiggling in tense anticipation. 

“Fucking christ,” he burst out when they finally began taxiing onto the runway. “I could have hitchhiked over there in the time it’s going to take us to fly.”

“Calm down,” Cobb said, looking like he was going to stab someone in the throat. The juxtaposition of Cobb as a loving stay-at-home dad versus this wild-eyed thing out for blood was interesting, and it kept Eames from focusing too hard on the fact that Felicci had now had Arthur for two hours. It would be another six and a half on the plane, with a half-hour layover in Dallas. Ten hours of being totally helpless, wondering what Felicci was doing to Arthur. He’d never said it in as many words, but Eames was adept at reading people and knew Arthur had some deep-seated issues stemming from the first time he’d fallen into Felicci’s clutches. God only knew what this assault was going to do to him. Eames just hoped and – madly – prayed that there would be enough left of Arthur for Eames to put back together again. 

The first place they went was Arthur’s hotel room. The door was locked, but Cobb stood on lookout while Eames overwrote the electronic card reader, blessing his forethought in bringing the little machine that did the work. It wasn’t as classy as an untwisted paperclip in the lock, but times changed and needs must. The door swung open, neither of them expecting to find much more than a torn up room, signs of a struggle. Bursting through the entryway, they were greeted with the last possible thing on either of their minds.

Arthur and Felicci, both of them looking decidedly worse for wear, were unconscious on the sofa, a gleaming PASIV between them. 

Eames’ first reaction was to pull a gun out and aim it at Felicci, completely intent on ending the man’s life. Cobb jerked his hand up before he could fire, and Eames almost turned it on the former extractor before his good sense caught up with the rest of him. “What the hell?”

“Unknown compound,” Cobb said, reasonably. When _Cobb_ was the voice of reason, things were _really_ fucked up. “We don’t know which one of them is the dreamer, or what’s going on in there. We kick Arthur first, wake him up, _then_ we shoot Felicci.”

“Done,” Eames said, and pulled Arthur off the couch. He sprawled onto the floor, but didn’t wake. Eames knelt down and shook him, shouted at him, and finally slapped him, but it was like manhandling a corpse. If not for the steady rise and fall of Arthur’s chest, Eames might have begun to panic. While he righted Arthur on the settee again, Cobb was rolling his sleeve up. 

“I’ll go under, shoot Felicci awake. If there’s a sedative, he’ll go into limbo, but the dream should collapse and wake Arthur and I up. If not, be prepared to shoot the fuck out of him the second he opens his eyes.” 

“What? Why are you going under?” 

Cobb’s lips thinned into a hard line. “You remember what we saw the last time we went into his mind,” he said, unnecessarily to Eames’ way of thinking.

“Yes,” he said slowly, wondering what the hell was going through Cobb’s mind.

“Arthur could be going through anything down there,” Cobb said, just as slowly. “I don’t want you to have to see it, if it’s bad. He’ll need you up here more than anything. Just for once, do as I say please?” 

An icy lump of fear settled into the pit of Eames’ stomach – he hadn’t even considered that. He thumbed the safety off, aimed his handgun at Felicci’s head, and nodded to Cobb. Cobb depressed the plunger and went under.

Not even a minute later, Felicci was sputtering and shouting, red-faced. Eames didn’t even let him get his bearings, didn’t give him a chance to see the face of his killer. He just pulled the trigger, and one neat hole appeared in Felicci’s forehead. Brain matter, blood, and bone tissue splattered the wall behind him, giving silent voice to the extent of the damage to the back. Eames loved hollow-point rounds. Seconds after that, Cobb came up screaming; he was followed quickly by Arthur who was utterly silent, just scrambled up the back of the couch until he was pressed against the wall, staring in mute horror at nothing. 

Eames dropped the gun. “Arthur?” 

Cobb retched, eyes wide. “Jesus fucking,” he said. “Arthur, jesus, are you alright?” 

Arthur blinked, seeming to see them for the first time. “Cobb?” His voice cracked, and he took a deep breath. “ _Eames?_ ”

“We’re here,” Eames said, pathetically. “You’re safe.” He wanted nothing more than to put his arms around Arthur and hold him tight for at least a month. He didn’t even feel safe moving, though; Arthur looked skittish enough to throw himself through the window. 

“Safe,” Arthur said, and his voice was almost normal. “Why didn’t you come sooner? Where _were_ you?” 

“On a plane,” Eames said, suddenly confused and not liking it. “I got here as soon as I could.” 

“Arthur,” Cobb said, and Arthur turned his attention to Cobb, both of them tense. “How long were you down there?” 

“Down where?” 

Suddenly, it all clicked into place. “Arthur, you were dreaming,” Eames said. “Whatever he did to you, it wasn’t real.” 

Arthur’s face crumpled up slowly, and he seemed to fold in on himself as the shudder took him. It was a whole-body affair, and looked painful. “Days,” Arthur said. “Weeks. I don’t know. A long time.” 

“Where’s your totem?” 

Arthur dug it out without replying, rolling it across the cushion. It slid towards his foot, but he seemed pleased with whatever it told him, and he took another deep breath. Then he seemed to realise that he was standing about six inches away from his tormentor, dead or not, and he practically leapt into Eames’ arms, swearing a blue streak. 

“Shh, shh, darling, calm down, he’s dead. He’s extremely dead, and he’s not coming back. Whatever he did, it wasn’t real. You’re okay, you’re safe now.” 

And that seemed to be the trigger Arthur had been waiting for; he folded up in Eames’ embrace, trusting the other man to keep him standing, and shook. He might have cried; Eames wasn’t going to hold it against him, and based on the fact that whatever Cobb had seen down there was _still_ making him nauseous – he was faintly green, almost, and Eames could see him twitch every so often as he fought down the reflex to puke – based on Cobb’s reaction, Eames felt certain that Arthur was entitled to a little break down. 

-o0o-

The first few months after were harder than any Arthur had ever known before. Eames was beside him tirelessly, through night-terrors and his inexplicable inability to react normally. The first time Arthur kissed him on his own initiative, it was counted a major step forward. He wasn’t able to talk about it – might never be able to talk about the endless days of torture he’d undergone – but dealing with it became easier as Eames tirelessly proved his devotion. 

Arthur refused to call it love. He didn’t know what kept the forger by his side, but since it was helping, he didn’t refute it. He just returned it as best he knew how, and two days after he managed to successfully kiss the other man without it making him think of silicone and electricity, he threw himself back into their old relationship like he’d never left it, never been broken in half and glued back together unevenly. He woke Eames up one morning with a blowjob and grinned his way through the rest of the day when Eames reciprocated. He had no fear of the dreamshare; he’d thought it was reality, when it was happening, and didn’t even know he’d been under until Cobb kicked him back to the top. Eames’ supposed betrayal had been nothing, and Arthur cut it into small pieces in his mind and tucked it away with the rest of the darkest shadows from his life. 

He thought sometimes he might still be broken, but with Eames there to fill in his holes – in all senses of the phrase, he thought, naughtily – he figured he could live with it. 

“It’s kinda funny,” Arthur commented to Eames one night after a particularly rousing bout of sex. They were both blissed out and loose-limbed, tangled in the sheets and one another with sweat and come drying on everything. “It took a psychopath to bring us together.” 

“How is that funny? I was seriously worried for you.” 

“Mm, but we might never have gotten to where we are without him.”

Eames drew him closer. “He was a monster,” he said. “I can’t feel grateful to him, no matter what.” 

“I do wonder where he learned to use a PASIV, though.”

**Author's Note:**

> Terrible ending is terrible. Jeez. Sorry. :/ I kept meaning to make this longer, and I’ve got a multi-chaptered fic with a target wordcount of 40-50k outlined and waiting for me to finish my other in-progs. I may turn this into a series/fic-verse a la AO3 later, but this particular branch of the story is thusly wrapped up (however badly. I sort of lost momentum. I hope it wasn’t too awful.)


End file.
